Category rule change defeats the purpose?

For years this sport has worked very hard to get more people interested in this sport, especially young people and women. The sport has worked hard to expand the number of winners at each event to spur interest in the sport as well. Now that some of those same young people and women are finding success the governing body of the sport changes the rules?

This sport should be celebrating the success of their efforts!

Please correct me if I am wrong…

If I understand this rule change correctly an adult male who is not a vet or sr. vet would be allowed to win either class or yardage with out declaring. An adult female would have to choose between lady, class or yardage. If she chooses lady she could not win class or yardage. Correct? If this is true then the female shooter who chooses lady is penalized for her choice. I could understand the need to ask the female junior shooter to choose lady or junior, but it appears to me that the choice of Lady takes her chance of winning any over all prizes away. Correct?

There is an old saying, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. I think this applies. Shoot management has always had the right to declare the shooter perference when the shooter failed to do so in a timely manner. The solution is to enforce the rule.

Lots of shoot offs is positive, lots of opportunities to win is positive, collecting over time a large group of shooters who should have won money or trophies will change this rule in hurry; limiting the opportunity to “win” in a competitive sport defeats the purpose of participating in the first place. Is this the message the sport wants to send?

Well said sideline !!!! If I have not already paid this years dues, I would say Bye right now, but since I did pay my dues for this year, I'' say good bye next season, and curtail most of My shooting registered targets this year...
This was poorly executed.

I know second place is the first loser but to some of us it is still a victory. Is it fair to the second place person in the class if a vet takes the class trophy so his buddy can take the vet trophy nocking the second place class shooter to third to get nothing! I pay the same amount of money, yet I am not old nor young enough to qualify for vet or junior. If we are able to pick and choose our catagory, I would like to shoot D or E class! (yes I know there is no E class)

It appears that this rule did exactly what was intended and that was to give Category Shooters the same options as everyone else, almost:

“A category shooter whose score does not qualify him/her for his/her category may compete for place, class or yardage group.”

That means the Cat shooter has the option to shoot for Category if their score qualifies or shoot for place, class, or yardage group. That is what non- category shooters have for options without the added option of shooting for Category. It is true that the Category Shooters have fewer options than before but still have one more option than all non-cat shooters. I neither endorse nor object to the new rule but merely state my observation. JRM

Sideline: It would be a good idea if you went to shootata.com, read the explanation of the new rules,.....and THEN come on this site and offer your opinions!
Alot of mis-information being spread here does no one any good.
Thanks, Walt

Women / young women / girls and chair shooters are the only category shooters that should be required to declare prior to shooting.

Male sub-jr, male juniors, males, male veterans, and male senior veterans already have their category defined based on their age and sex. They should be permitted to shoot-off then fall back to their automatically defined category if they lose. No declaration required.

Women / young women / girls sand chair shooters should be required to declare then shoot-off and fall back to category if they lose.